Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Adventures in Teaching our Kids Spanish

The journey and adventure in raising bilingual children takes many turns as they grow and develop. When my children were babies and toddlers, we spoke Spanish with them all of the time and their bilingual development happened naturally and easily. They responded and interacted in both English and Spanish with ease, as their little lives were immersed with both languages. Today, with my children being elementary age, their bilingual development has changed and focuses more on age appropriate learning skills that they are currently learning in school. My son is learning to count by 2's, 5's, and 10's in his kindergarten class. Likewise we focus on these same math skills in Spanish with him. My daugther is a proficient reader in English and we have been working on her proficiency in Spanish as well. Her bilingual brain allows her to easily hear the sound of Spanish and understand how to pronounce words. We focus on the vowel sound differences when reading in Spanish and she can immediately know when she is pronouncing something incorrectly. As a bilingual educator, I know the importance of being a proficient reader in your first language before introducing the second. We waited until I felt my daughter was secure in her English reading skills before introducing Spanish literacy. We often read bilingual books that are written in English with a smattering of Spanish words thrown in the text. This enables my daughter to differentiate the sounds and pronunciation. It is fun to find new ways to teach Spanish to my children. Here is a brief clip reading the beautifully written and illustrated Fiesta Babies by Carmen Tafolla.

1 comment:

Anonymous
said...

Hi Maestra,

I want to send you some information on Baby Abuelita, multicultural dolls, DVDs and books that preserves hispanic heritage. Yet, I cannot find an email for you. Please email me at lauren@asapprod.com so I can send you some information. Love your blog! Thanks

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About Me

Teaching Spanish to children is something I do on a daily basis, both with my own children and with my students. I made the decision to leave my full time job as a classroom teacher to assume the new full time role as a stay at home mom. After many requests from neighbors and friends to host Spanish playgroups, I decided to start my business venture. Using my professional experience as a classroom teacher and my personal experience as a mom, I started The Bilingual Fun Company, which is a language education company teaching Spanish to parents and children. Young children have the incredible ability to absorb and retain languages. It still never ceases to amaze me how their language so easily develops. My husband is my partner in the bilingual business of raising our children and developing our company.